Social Media Posts

SoftLayer loves startups. The culture, the energy, the potential ... It's all good stuff. As you may remember from my 3 Bars 3 Questions interview and our Teens in Tech profile, one of the ways we support startups is through an incubator program that provides a phenomenal hosting credit and a lot of technology know-how to participating organizations.

In San Francisco, one of the flagship programs we're excited to be a part of is called PeopleBrowsr Labs, a startup accelerator geared toward technology companies in the area. As you sit in the PeopleBrowsr office, the brilliance in the air is almost palpable ... Young companies doing innovative things with everything they need to be successful at their disposal. One of the fringe benefits for participants in PeopleBrowsr Labs is that they're actually rubbing elbows with the PeopleBrowsr team as well ... Which is almost worth the price of admission.

In addition to the Labs sponsorship, SoftLayer is also the infrastructure provider for PeopleBrowsr and its unbelievable data mine of information. They've got every tweet that's been tweeted since early 2008, and they've been able to take that content and make sense of it in unique and interesting ways ... And that's why we stopped by for a visit this week. Last night, PeopleBrowsr officially launched Kred, a dynamic and innovative social influence measurement platform, to a LOT of fanfare (see: TechCrunch).

In the midst of the launch-day craziness, we grabbed Scott Milener, PeopleBrowsr SVP of business development, to have him explain a little about Kred, what differentiates it from the other social influence measurements and what it means for users interested in engaging more effectively with their social networks. Check it out:

With the clear success of the announcement, we want to send a shout out of congratulations to the PeopleBrowsr team. It looks like a phenomenal leap forward in understanding social engagement, and we know it's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we'll see coming out of the PeopleBrowsr office in the near future.

If you feel a little jaded by the social influence measurements you've seen, Kred's transparency and community-centricity should be refreshing: http://kred.ly

There are so many different types of Social Networks nowadays: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Channels, the faded MySpace and recently popular Google+. They all have different features but are essentially used for the same purpose. Facebook is the largest player in the market, and every time it makes a change, the world collectively gasps ... And a lot of people start yelling.

When Facebook launched back in 2004, it was designed with college kids in mind. I remember when you HAD to have a college email address to set up a Facebook account – the good ole days. A year or two later, Facebook created a separate section for high school students, and not too long after that, anyone on the planet could get a Facebook account, and the growing/changing audience necessitated changes in the platform.

Facebook is a great way to find old friends and catch up, and it's also an easier way to update everyone all at once what you are doing. I found out my best friend was engaged on Facebook ... That's right. I found out by Facebook before I got a phone call. Facebook is like a drug - it's addictive. Some people live there all day.

If you work for an IT company, you know that technology is constantly changing. To keep up with evolutions in technology and perceived needs of the growing user base, Facebook will update its platform every few months. If you have a Facebook account, you've probably noticed that they released a new layout this week. You've probably also noticed all of your friends' status changes complaining about how they hate the way it looks, how "It's too hard to use." Those friends hated the old "new Facebook," and somewhere down the road, they've learned to love and/or depend on that "new Facebook" which is now in the "old Facebook" category. It's pretty annoying right?

Here's my advice for the change-averse:

If Facebook didn't change, it would get stagnant and someone else would introduce something better ... The same way Facebook supplanted MySpace. DEAL WITH IT.

If you don't like the changes Facebook makes, DELETE your account and move to a new Social Network like Twitter or try out Google+.

Instead of complaining how hard the new Facebook is to use, take the time to READ the instructions they have provided for you ... From a desktop you are able to mouse over a section and it will tell you what it means and how to use it.

Last but not least – whining is for babies and last time I checked you were in your 20's, 30's, 40's, and up - so suck it up!

Once again the Dallas Cowboys let a game they weren't supposed to win slip away from them in the 4th quarter. Again it was Tony "oops" Romo that had a hand (or "didn't have hands") in the loss. I can't blame it all on him as I saw many problems that led up to the defeat. I, as a master football coach of 4-6 year-old flag football, could write multiple paragraphs on that subject, but because this is a social media blog, I will get back on topic.

After last night's "4th quarter of doom" that probably led to crazy nightmares for my sleeping kids (I may have been yelling loudly and often), I decided to open Twitter to see what everyone in the world thought about the game. I have to admit I was a little shocked at how many Cowboy haters are out in the wild. Of course the game was trending, and the conversation was ... diverse: You had your die-hard Cowboy fans that were saying, "Shake it off, you weren't supposed to win anyway." You had your fair weather fans that were saying, "Great, another season opener loss, I guess I'll follow the Texans instead." You had the fans of other teams that were saying, "Haha, the Cowboys lost again – Go (Insert your team here)!" And, of course you had the pure Cowboy haters who were saying, "#$%^#$%^#$ the Cowboys they #$%#$% and #$%# and then #$%#$%. Eat it!" I would say most were Cowboy haters, and most of the tweets were not even close to being rated PG-13.

Stay with me now ... I'm finally onto the real topic.

Social Media
What I saw on Twitter last night was real Social Media to me. It was current, real time, opinionated, cool and sad all at the same time. It encapsulated the thoughts and reactions of the public to something that was happening or just happened. Why is social media cool? A couple of weeks ago when the earthquake struck the northeast, people were saying that they received tweet updates of the ground shaking and notifications that an earthquake hit seconds before they felt the tremors in their area. Think about that and how many possible uses that has in lots of different industries. X happens, Y needs to know about it right away, Z tweets it or posts it on Facebook (or any of the 2000 other social apps out there), and like magic you have the information almost before you are supposed to. That's viral social media.

Social Marketing
Social Marketing isn't nearly as sexy. It's only and exactly what it sounds like. We do it at SoftLayer: You see tweets from us talking about press releases, new products, our new website, our new international locations and some of the other value we provide to customers because we know how easy it is to miss some of the best stuff in the noisy social sphere. It helps us build our brand and helps with awareness by getting our name in front of people who may not have seen it otherwise. It drives traffic to our website and straight to our order form. It is significant to our bottom line.

The challenge with this kind of engagement is that the volume of content can seem overwhelming to some. Some customers only want to hear the viral social media kind of stuff with up to the minute news (which is our vision for @SoftLayerNotify), but it's tough to abandon the social marketing piece because it's been so measurably successful for us.

With that being said, we want to hear from you about what you like and don't like about our social engagement. What you would like to see more of? What would you like to see less of? Do you like it? Do you hate it? We're definitely listening ... Well as long as we're not busy getting ready for the next flash mob.

As one of the newest members to the SoftLayer family, let me make something clear: One of the biggest changes in SoftLayer's social media presence is directly a result of me. Okay ... well I might not have directly initiated the change, but I like to think that when you're a new kid on the block, you have to stick together with the other new editions. My new BFF and partner in crime at SL is the SoftLayer Channel on YouTube. He's replaced SoftLayerTube Channel (though I should be clear that I haven't replaced anyone ... just become a big help to our registered Social Media Ninja KHazard).

This blog is my first major contribution to the InnerLayer, and when I was asked to write it I must admit I was very excited. On literally my 6th day of work, my hope was to make a major impact or at least prove that a ninja-in-training (that would be me) can hold her own with a full-fledged ninja ... but I digress. The real reason I'm here is to talk about our move from SoftLayerTube to SoftLayer. With a little YouTube wizardry and some help from our friends in Mountain View, CA, we've been able to take the help of the better-branded /SoftLayer account.

Don't worry, you are not going to lose any of your favorite SL videos ... They're just taking a permanent trip to the SoftLayer channel.

When you're walking down the aisles of an expo hall at a technical conference, what do you expect to see? Stacks of collateral? Maybe a few giveaway T-shirts? A fancy switch-ball or two? How about a crowd of people watching as a fellow attendee slams hard drive trays into a server enclosure and frantically plugs in network cables as a digital clock times them?

Cynical attendees might look at the Server Challenge and think of it as a gimmicky way to draw a crowd to our booth, but when you step up to the server enclosure to compete, you're getting a crash course in SoftLayer's business (along with an exciting tangible experience).

Before your first attempt, you'll learn that SoftLayer is a hosting provider and that you'll be reassembling a miniature version of the larger server racks we have filling data centers around the country (soon to be around the world). You see that one of SoftLayer's biggest differentiators is our network configuration: A public network, a private network and an out-of-band management network connection to every SoftLayer server for free ... And when the clock starts, we can share even more of the SoftLayer story.

Our goal is to let you experience SoftLayer while you're just hearing about other companies. As it turns out, the experience draws people in:

One of the coolest parts of pulling together that time lapse video from OSCON was seeing the reactions on the faces of the participants when they finished. The challenge sparks a surge of adrenaline, so when competitors stop the clock, they expectantly check to see how they fare against the conference's Top 10 times.

In the last conference alone, no fewer than five other companies (who don't even have a connection with the hosting industry) approached us to ask how they could build their own Server Challenge. Needless to say, the Server Challenge is becoming a SoftLayer conference staple ... And we're looking forward to the hottest competition ever at HostingCon 2011 next week!

Between your study of server schematics and your dissection of the winning run's strategy from the end of the OSCON video, make sure you click through to George's HostingCon preview so you can learn where to find SoftLayer in San Diego.

In the second episode of my self-made documentary series about the birth of a revolution in hosting, I explained how Lance and I mutually decided that a better course of action would be to build a data center for the future's future, and I sketched out the basics of effective data centering. Lance sent the keys to the new non-traditional facility, and I jumped at the chance to give a tour of the amazing digs.

Because I wanted to make sure to document as much of the process as I could for this documentary film (I'm coming for you, The Social Network), you're experiencing the tour as I explore the space for the first time, so I hope you find it as magical as I did. Note: I took the liberty of acquiring suitable transportation to give you the most professional "tour" experience.

You'll note that the facility features several important characteristics of the best data center environments:

Heightened Exterior Security

Data Center Operations Area

Weather Tracking Station

Tech Support Center

CEO Suite

Redundant Bandwidth Providers

Multi-phase Power

Power Generator

Built-in Cooling

Crash Cart Station

Vaulted Ceilings (for warm air circulation)

Now that I've got the lay of the land, it's just a matter of drawing up some plans for server racks, plugging in some servers and getting some customers to experience the newest wave of hosting innovation!

If you didn't read the title to this post in the singsong seventh-inning stretch tune, the rest of this post probably won't be for you. For those of you who just got to "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack," as the song kept playing in your head, you're going to love the news we have to share. We'll wait for you to finish belting out "At the old ball game!" first, though.

[Pausing here for everyone to finish the song.]

Now that everyone's back together, I want you to make sure you don't lose any of that late-inning adrenaline because you might need it at the end of this post.

SoftLayer is all about customer experience. Just ask Skinman. If you're a SoftLayer employee and you don't have "the customer" in the top slot of your "work priorities" list, you'll either need to update that list quickly or update your résumé. This post isn't about THE SoftLayer customer experience, though ... It's about A SoftLayer customer experience.

THE SoftLayer customer experience is all about automation, efficiency, service and innovation. A SoftLayer customer experience uses the term in a much more general sense: It's any opportunity we have to give back to our customers in the form of events, contests, and in this case, baseball tickets! If you're a SoftLayer customer, you're entitled to more fun than our competitors' customers ... And if that's not in our terms of service, it probably should be. :-)

Throughout the 2011 Major League Baseball season, SoftLayer will be giving away tickets to Texas Rangers home games in Arlington, Texas! We're going to keep you guessing about how/when/where we'll be giving them away, but if you keep your eye on the SoftLayer Blog, follow @SoftLayer on Twitter, subscribe to SoftLayerTube on YouTube and "Like" us on Facebook, you'll be the first to hear.

We're pretty sure customers in the DFW area are going to be the most excited, since they can root for the home team, but as the season progresses, the net may be cast significantly wider ... Reaching out to customers in other parts of the country (world?) who love SoftLayer and want to catch a game while they're in town for a data center tour. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves just yet. Let's give away our first set of tickets!

How to Enter
Since our first giveaway doesn't include transportation to/from the game, the primary pool of participants will be customers who live within driving distance (or happen to be in the DFW area on April 18). Entry into the competition is simple: Comment on this post about why you love SoftLayer.

When you're entering your email, please use a contact address associated with your SoftLayer account. Submissions will be accepted from now until 10 a.m. CDT on Thursday, April 14, so get to writing! We'll have a quick internal vote for all of the submissions after removing your contact information to obscure on which account goes with which response. If your submission wins, we'll email you on Thursday to arrange for ticket delivery ... You'll have the whole weekend to get excited about the game!

If you are a SoftLayer customer you probably noticed a maintenance window early Sunday morning. If you aren't a SoftLayer customer, (you should be, and) you may have even noticed on quite a few social media outlets that we were trying to provide real-time updates about the maintenance progress, and our customers were doing so as well.

SoftLayer customers were given two internal tickets notifying them if they were to be affected, and when those tickets were created, the ticket system would have then sent an email to the admin user on that account. Additionally, our portal notification system was updated to show details about the window, and we created new threads in our customer forums to provide regular, centralized updates. We went as far as taking a few calls and meetings with customers to talk about their concerns with the maintenance timing and length because we know that any downtime is bad downtime in the world of hosting.

Saturday night, we had extra support on staff online, and our social media ninja was awake and letting the world know step by step what we were doing with real time status alerts. We wanted to be extremely transparent during the entire process. This was not a maintenance we could avoid, and we tried to roll as many different things that needed work into this maintenance without making a roll back impossible.

The maintenance itself went well, and as planned, most items that were taken down were back online well before the window ended. We ran into a few snags in bringing all of the CloudLayer CCIs back online, but even with those delays for a few customers, the work was completed by the time we committed to.

Now for the customer experience aspect. From reading various tweets from our customers, it seems like we should/could have done a few things even better: Been more proactive, sent standard email, attempted phone calls, etc.

While some of these options may be considered, not all are feasible. If you are one of the customers that tweeted, has blogged, is planning on tweeting, is planning on blogging or believes we're being anything less than genuine and transparent on our social media platforms, I want to hear from you.

Have you seen The Social Network? I don't know about you, but it's hard for me to see a movie before it comes out on iTunes or pay-per–view these days, so I'm a little late to the game on this one. I watched most of it on my flight back from Parallels Summit in Orlando ... And I say "most of it" because I started it up right when they said it was legal to turn on my device, and I had to stop watching it when iTunes decided I didn't need to see the last twenty minutes.

One minute, I was enjoying Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker (of Napster fame) yelling, "Let's get some Sho..." and the next minute, I'm smacking my iPad to figure out what happens next. Since they were at a club, I assume he was saying "shots," but I may or may not have had shots at the SoftLayer Happy Hour, so I might have been projecting.

Needless to say, I was mentally writing a sternly worded email to the higher-ups at Apple as I smacked my iPad like a early 80's televesion set to get the movie to start again. The story was interesting, and I couldn't help but think about its motivational slant.

Sometimes when you do the same job for a few years, you lose focus of where you've been and where you're headed ... both on a personal level and on a company level. I've had the opportunity to see SoftLayer grow from "start-up mode" to where we are today, and in the course of that growth, I filled seven or eight different positions throughout the organization. From the frontlines of support to the back office of marketing to large scale projects that work strategically on the company as a whole, I've seen our success from every angle. And The Social Network reinvigorated me with a fresh wave of SoftLayer-focused motivation.

What I'm trying to figure out now is which perspective in the story I was most motivated by. Is it okay to be inspired by the way Zuckerburg executed on the idea of "thefacebook," or does the moral compass require me to root for the Harvard Connect gang? Does Sean Parker's vision for Facebook and influence on its growth lose steam if it's framed by how it affected Eduardo Saverin?

Regardless of which sides are the "right" ones to take, each involves a dramatic departure from the status quo. I'm not encouraging you to go start a legal war or model your business after Facebook's quasi-factual history, but don't be afraid to rock the boat a little if it needs to be rocked.

Jean-Paul Sartre once said, "Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat." If that quote were to pick a side in the movie, it would be on the now-defunct Harvard Connect side ... With a few billion dollars less than the alternative.

If you've been watching @softlayer and @softlayer_news for the past week, you've probably seen a few mentions of a SoftLayer Mystery Event. In the words of Winston Churchill, "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

The hints got more and more revealing as the week progressed, and any geek worth his/her salt could probably have used some Google-fu around Hint 6 to figure out what was going down. If you consider that a challenge, here are the clues we posted. Try to figure it out without peeking past this image:

Did you figure it out or did you just scroll down here to get the details on the event? Well tehe wait is over: SoftLayer is sponsoring NAMM JAM. Headliner: Megadeth.

This Friday, January 14, SoftLayer joins some of the biggest names in the music industry to co-present a face-melting 34th anniversary party for presenting sponsor Dean Guitars at The Grove of Anaheim.

If you live in Southern California and you're interested in having your socks rocked off on Friday night, stay tuned to @SoftLayer and @SoftLayer_News for your chance to score a pair of VIP tickets to the event. The tickets are going to go to the folks who want them the most, so get ready to prove your love for SoftLayer and metal!